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Monday, December 8, 2014

Black Friday this year is going to be like any other black Friday, stampedes of people, irritated employees, and “Cheaper prices than ever.” Cheap prices, and ads all around to show these prices, have dropped. What some don’t know is that certain businesses take advantage of the oblivious consumers that stampede the store on the first Friday after Thanksgiving. These business sometimes lower prices even lower than they advertise weeks before Black Friday, just to make more profit from the oblivious customers. If you did solid research on certain items and knew the retail price, you could catch these sudden drops in prices weeks before the big sale event. The crowds, the fights, and the early stampedes can be proven to not be worth it on Black Friday, especially if the sales are lower in prior weeks to the event. Working and shopping on Black Friday can be a drag, but can be beneficial to the customer, as well as the employees. Higher pay and cheaper prices could never be a better day for a customer and an employee, but the environment of Black Friday can be too much for someone not used to the crowds. Some employees say: “You couldn’t pay me enough to work on Black Friday!”

Camping in freezing temperatures, dealing with stampedes and sometimes the bloody fight for the last item on the wall. Black Friday is an opportunity for people who love sales to get crazy about maybe getting a television for 50% that they do not even need. Black Friday in a sense has people saying, “I’d be losing money if I didn’t buy it.” With this comes massive amounts of people lined out stores, filling up streets, waiting for some of the biggest sales of the year in retail space to come out. Then again, they could wait until the next Monday when they could be sipping a hot cup of hot chocolate getting even better deals at home on their computer. But why would they? Why would they do that, when you can risk being trampled on and dying by electronically and home appliance hungry buyers? But for millions of Americans especially in a recovering economy like this, Black Friday has been the opportunity to not only get holiday gifts at a very low cost, but also a lot of the shopping for the year out of the way. There is a chance you could be run on and killed by thousands of insane individuals, but you also could be hit by a bus walking to the store. Black Friday every year brings commotion and madness, but in the end brings many families a financially easy holiday season. And really, what person does not love getting great deals, even if the stuff you are buying is not the most important. So this Black Friday, head up to Oxford Valley, Bridgewater, or King of Prussia and get the deals of the year on the items you love!

Friday, December 5, 2014

A Barbie doll has a height of twelve inches, a waist that is three and three quarters of an inch, and hips that measure to be five inches all around. Her dimensions have been proven to be unrealistic by designer Nickolay Lamm.

Lamm recently did the project: “What would Barbie look like in real life?” In this project, he compared Barbie’s disproportionate body to that of a healthy 19 year old’s. To do so, Lamm used 3D models for both body types.

“Of course, Barbie is just a doll, and I’m sure people are going to say that a toy can’t negatively affect a young girl’s self-esteem. However, if people talk so much about skinny models in advertisements, surely we can talk about Barbie.” Lamm said.

He found that if Barbie were to be scaled, she would be five feet nine inches with a bust that is thirty-six inches, an eighteen inch waist, hips that are thirty-three inches, a head circumference of twenty-two inches, and a neck that measures out to be nine inches.

Compare this to a healthy nineteen-year-old girl that is five feet three inches and a half will have a 33.6 inch waist, a head circumference that is twenty inches, and a neck that measures to be fifteen inches. Her bust would be thirty-five inches with hips that are measurably forty.

This information proves that a real life Barbie would not have even enough space in her body for her vital organs, considering she only would have room for half of a liver. In addition, she would need to walk on all fours, given her ankle and foot size. Imagine getting a quadruped Barbie doll for the holidays.

Lamm takes his project of deciphering the measurements of a human Barbie a step further by creating a new more realistic and healthy Barbie doll. Nickolay Lamm calls his doll a “Lammily.”

“Lammily” displays proportions of a healthy nineteen-year-old girl and includes stickers that exhibit real life occurrences in a young adult girl’s life, such as acne, cellulite, and tattoos. Lamm has stateed the imperfect nature” of the dolls does not seem to be an issue and that he watched young children playing with them, laughing as they took the stickers on and off to customize their Lammilies. To prove this, he posted a video to YouTube that showcases a group of second graders’ reactions to the innovative doll. He hopes that they will appeal to teenagers, as well, given their distinct but relatable characteristics. Lamm also recently completed a study entitled: “What would Barbie look like without makeup?”

While a Barbie doll can be dismissed a toy, why continue to promote this unrealistic body size? Almost every girl grows up playing with a Barbie doll. Even though not every child believes she needs to look like one to gain acceptance, the prevalence of a doll with unrealistic and unhealthy proportions instills that idea. The option is now there to provide a toy that girls can relate to instead of one that they wish they could look like. At a young age, girls are unadulterated by the pressure to look perfect at all times. Barbie doesn’t significantly change that, but the doll doesn’t encourage that either. Instead, Mattel introduces a specific body type that is ideal for girls to look like and for men to idolize. A Lammily eradicates the pressure of unrealistic expectations for young girls.

For the first time since 2007, Republicans have gained a majority in the American senate. This senate race was critical for the remaining two years of Obama’s presidency and his agenda, which Republicans will now argue against as much as they can, along with pressing for the repeal of Obamacare. The Republicans now have 53 seats compared to the Democrat’s 46 seats and two seats belonging to Independents, and one runoff election set for December 6th in Louisiana between Sen. Mary Landrieu, who is desperately clinging to her seat, and her Republican opponent Bill Cassidy, who has been gaining more support due to more bitter opinions towards Obama throughout Louisiana. Many blame the result of this election on President Obama’s low approval rate among Americans, however the president refuses to take responsibility. One responsibility he won’t be able to deny, however, is if he decides to veto the Keystone Pipeline when the Republicans give him the bill for it when the new Senators are inaugurated, which Republicans promised would happen. If Obama does veto the bill, Democrats will have a very difficult time obtaining their votes in the elections to come, since the Keystone Pipeline would make America energy independent.

Despite the huge success in the Senate, Republicans probably won’t be able to do much, even if they try. If Obama chooses to refuse working with the Republicans in any way and just vetoes whatever is put on his plate, he’ll gradually starve himself and the States. With a current overall approval rating of 41% (Republicans at an 11% approval rating towards Obama, Independents at 22%, and Democrats at 76%), it isn’t too hard to see that it will only move further down with all parties if Obama refuses to work with the new Senate given to him by the American people.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

In an unbelievable recurrence, the New Hope-Solebury cafeteria has once again taken away the original chocolate cookies and have replaced them with much smaller, less appetizing cookies.

This is not the first time the chocolate chip cookies have been replaced, as last year, in a shocking discovery, the original cookies were taken off the market until they were brought back after students showed their anger towards the new, smaller cookies. In a classic “don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” event (shout to all the Cinderella fans out there), students at New Hope-Solebury did not know how much the “good” chocolate chip cookies meant to them.

“I took them for granted. They were so good and I thought to myself, ‘There’s no way something so good would be taken away from the students.’ I was shocked last year when the cookies were taken away, and I’m even more shocked this time around considering how much anguish was created within the student body last year when the cookies were taken away,” stated a solemn, anonymous New Hope-Solebury High School student.

However, there are other options at lunch when contemplating dessert such as: sugar cookies, ice cream frozen treats, a piece of cake, or a 100 calorie Keebler Elves cookie pack. Yet, to the students at New Hope-Solebury, no other dessert can compare to the original chocolate chip cookie.

“If you like chocolate, the original chocolate chip cookies were the way to go. The ice cream options are just too expensive and the sugar cookies don’t have the chocolate we want. And let’s be honest, it would take like three 100 calorie Keebler Elves cookies packs to satisfy any sort of sweet tooth. For 80 cents, I was able to get one of the best cookies, and now it’s all gone,” a distraught Matt Steele had to say.

Clearly, the original chocolate chip cookies were friendly to the stomach and the wallet. As the school moves closer to Thanksgiving and the winter holidays, it will be interesting to see whether or not the school and the cafeteria open up their hearts and bring back the “good” chocolate chip cookies.

“It’s absurd to think that they took them away once. But a second time? That’s mayhem. Absolute mayhem. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to bring back the greatest cookies that have ever been made here at New Hope-Solebury High School,” Ken Fest had to add.

New Hope students can only hope that the cookies will end up back on the shelves. For the Class of 2015, time is winding down, which means with each passing day, one more day goes by without the “good” chocolate chip cookies.

Ken Fest also added, “Not only did they take away from our lunch, but now they're taking away from our tradition.”